Musical chairs at Monroe County jail

May 8, 2007: David Keenhold, a 31-year employee at the Monroe County Correctional Facility, retires after nearly 20 years as warden. He says his retirement has nothing to do with a sex scandal in which five corrections officers were eventually convicted or pleaded guilty to engaging in sex acts with inmates. Sept. 17, 2007: D...

May 8, 2007: David Keenhold, a 31-year employee at the Monroe County Correctional Facility, retires after nearly 20 years as warden. He says his retirement has nothing to do with a sex scandal in which five corrections officers were eventually convicted or pleaded guilty to engaging in sex acts with inmates.

Sept. 17, 2007: David Kessling, on loan from the state Department of Corrections, takes over as interim warden.

Jan. 4, 2008: Marlene Chamblee, a former 20-year employee at the Rikers Island detention center in New York City, is named Monroe County Correctional Facility warden. In July, Chamblee resigned abruptly, citing other job opportunities, and asked that it be accepted immediately. Some prison employees said privately that relations between Chamblee and the staff were strained.

July 18, 2008: David Mauro, who spent 26 years in corrections in Morris County, N.J., and was hired as deputy warden just a month prior to Chamblee's sudden resignation, is named acting warden.

Feb. 27, 2009: Mauro is suspended along with Capt. Owen Thomas — the jail's third-ranking officer — apparently after Thomas makes a disparaging remark to Mauro in the lunchroom the previous day about a corrections officer. Some at the jail say Mauro was suspended for failure to admonish Thomas. Others say the prison board was frustrated by general ongoing lack of communication from Mauro, though all those involved refuse to comment.

Thomas was hired in March 2008 after the previous captain was fired — just two weeks into the job — when the prison board learned the previous hire was accused of abusing inmates at another prison.

Garry McFarland, the Snydersville prison's director of treatment, has been acting chief administrator at the prison since the suspensions of Mauro and Thomas. The 21-year jail employee holds the fourth-ranking position at the prison. The top three positions — warden, deputy warden and captain — are vacant.